Every human molecule, unless he be the victim of dry-rot in the emotional uplift or borer in the ego, must have experienced, at some time, the great primeval urge to pack his “boy-proof” and trek over the bulge of the horizon.

Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself has said,
I itch to hit the “wild and free,”
To feel the sandflies biting me,
To wear the caveman's bronze and dust,
I'll have to hit the track——or Bust.

These poignant words by the wellknown poet and traveller, Buzzoff, aptly illustrate the mental metamorphosis known in less scientific language as “the call of the open throttle.” It is an emotional reaction common to all classes of society, from the landed to the stranded gentry of the world; else, what is it that prompts ladies whose blood is genealogically blue, to defy the Great Unknown with only a lip - stick and a tinted bodyguard? What is it that causes the superannuated colonel's trigger - finger to itch so excruciatingly that he needs must hasten off into the impenetrable jungles of Foozledum-land intent on shoot- page 11 ing rhynosorobulls and snapdragons on the wing? Why do engine - drivers go on walking tours, and postmen profess a weakness for roller-skating? Why do salty sea-captains reap the seagrass off their chins and become country hotelkeepers? Change, dear reader—the deep-rooted fickleness which lurks in the cerebrum of every mortal, except him with a permanent wave in his jovialty complex and a soul that functions with the mechanical precision of a cash register. Change— not small change, but the variety composed ten-tenths of overproof inquisitiveness which makes a corner as irresistible to the average optic as the spectacle of other people working, and urges the bifurcated biped to park the daily task sine die, and project himself thither by foot, rail and motor. Curiosity—the irresistible accelerator of man's progression—which goads him on to obscure parts of the globe to see (for instance) if it is really true that the popple-bird flies upside down to keep the sun out of its eyes, and to test the truth of the allegation concerning the hypnotic power of the black-bottom bustard in Central Syncopatia.

As evidence of the above great truths, let us quote the titles of some of the travel books we have not read:—

Over the Himalayas on a Ham Sandwich.
Bed-hunting in Strange Domains.
Across the Sahara on the Water-wagon.
Over Niagara in a Fit of Optimism.
Ten Years on the Rocks.
Through Insomnia on a Kapok.
Pursued by Duns in the wilds of Insolvency.
Eaten Alive by Curiosity.
Moonlight Filts from Flat to Flat.

There is, in truth, a time in the lives of all men when they can no longer resist the call of the bowser; when the inner meaning of a Honolulu bathing suit and an ice-cream cone is suddenly revealed to them; when January pokes a freckled nose round the office door and emits vocal vibrations which resemble the gurgling cry of the surfbather, the hiss of a boiling billy, the purring of “double, balloons,” the crackling of sunburn, and the whang of the niblick, all combined in a love lyric.

For January, the brightest and best of Time's twelve daughters, is a good sport, and her second name is Holid'ys. She carries a kick in every corpuscle and a jazz melody under her kit. She whisks you away to bush, beach and bach, where Sol's violet rays accelerate your blood-pressure and rebuild your depleted tissues, making Coue-ism and monkey-glands look as dilapidated as a crate of eggs in a motor smash.

What prompted Stephenson to squander his beauty-sleep in devising a means of fitting wheels on a kettle? Why did that renowned exponent of the infernal-combustion mode of transport create his famous bounding bedstead?

Why—because these pioneers of celerity recognised that the human horizon was controlled by the limitations of man's pedals, and by prefixing “heels” with a W they made wheels for the weary.